DIVORCE IS VERY COSTLY.

MARRIAGE MATTERS NEWSLETTER No 010. Monday 10th June 2024.

DIVORCE IS VERY COSTLY.

When I see people talking about divorce lightly, I always feel that those people are either ignorant of the cost of divorce or they are being mischievous. If you know how expensive it is, you will want to sacrifice greatly to keep your home.

Following are some of the potential costs of divorce. The list is however not exhaustive because the cost varies from one couple to the other.

LONELINESS.
Loneliness is one of the major factors you should consider greatly before you think of divorce. Usually between husband and wife, there is need to ask questions, discuss, analyze situations and even quarrel and settle it again. All the above make us to communicate constantly with one another. The value of such interactions may not be appreciated until your spouse is not around. A woman recently told me that she was going to do away with her divorced very close friend because she was becoming a problem. Whenever she visits her, sometimes without her permission, she would stay for hours, talking and talking. On phone it is the same thing, talking bitterly about her former husband and other issues that were really becoming a waste of valuable time for her. What the woman didn’t know was that her friend was just trying to overcome her loneliness through opening up to a friend. Meeting her friend was an opportunity for her to unwind and bring out all that she had bottled up due to loneliness.
Having your spouse to keep you company for diverse activities including communication is one of the costs of divorce. Without your spouse, you will very likely be lonely.

REGULAR NORMAL ACTIVITIES.
A woman once gave me an apparently simple assignment, which was to help her persuade her former husband to wear the same uniform with her during the wedding of their first son. She did not want the in-laws to know that there was problem at home. However, by the time I called the Husband to to tell him that his former wife had bought the cloth, and paid the tailor for him just to go and take measurements. He refused bluntly, according to him, he could not imagine himself wearing the same uniform with her. Imagine how the woman would be feeling during that wedding!
It would have been normal and highly pleasurable for herself and husband to be in uniform on the day of their joy but doing that has now become abnormal and distasteful to the husband. A lot of things you do normally as a couple becomes abnormal after divorce. It is one of the reasons why divorce is costly.

DECENT SEXUAL INTIMACY.
With your spouse, sexual intimacy is experienced in a relaxed atmosphere without pressure. When you divorce and need to experience sexual pleasure, it is not going to be the same thing. Usually, because the partner you are doing it with is married to another person, you will either want to do it quickly or discretely in a way that you would not be discovered. This need makes you to be under pressure, since you would not want to be discovered.
Sometimes you still want to be cuddled by your man for some time after sex, but your sex partner has to be on his way home to go and meet his spouse. Often as a man too, you still want to relax with your partner after sex but is not possible for the same reason. For this reason, after the divorce there is high tendency that you may not enjoy sex when, how and where you want it. It is one of the costs of divorce that you should seriously consider before going into divorce.

LEGACY OF A GOOD HOME.
One of the areas in which you may make a definite impact in the life of your children is in the area of upholding your marriage. Despite all the challenges you are likely to encounter, when you endure to keep your home, your children are learning vital lessons which they will very like replicate in their own home. Someone said that marriage is the headquarters of offenses. If you are able to forgive your spouse even when you are greatly offended, you are teaching your children some vital lessons on forgiveness.
Consequently, when you are not able to keep your home, it would have cost you the ability for you to make your home a model to be emulated by your children.

BEING IN THE WILL OF GOD.
Through various scriptures, it is evident that God hates divorce. For instance Matthew 19:6 says;

“…What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

The scripture makes it clear that marriage is a union put together by God. Once you are married, you should not allow any person, situation or circumstances to separate your union. It follows that when you allow such separation, you are not in the will of God. Except in situations where your life is threatened, in which you may need to separate in other to allow things to cool down and look for ways to resolve issues, keep your home.
Also, in Malachi 2:16, a categorical statement was made thus;

“For the LORD God of Israel says
That He hates divorce,…”

If God hates divorce, and you carry it out against His will, then one of the costs of divorce is the will of God in your life.

PLEASURABLE REMINISCENCES.
There is no way that as a divorced person you will not often remember the good times you spent with one another, or sometimes how you miss the kind of life you would have loved to live with your former spouse. This may be a source of feelings of bitterness and regrets that may result in depression for you.
So, when you divorce, one of the potential costs is sweet memories that you may no longer be able to experience.

NORMAL UPBRINGING OF YOUR CHILDREN.
It has been discovered through various researches that broken home has negative impact on the offsprings of the family. Every child needs to be raised in a congenial environment that accommodates love and affection as well as the demonstration of genuine acceptance of shortfalls and the readiness to forgive. When you divorce, your children are denied the opportunity to be raised in such a home, which affects their character. That is why a large percentage of drop outs and miscreants in the society are products of broken homes. Often, when you divorce, you keep trying other partners with different characteristics that are visible to your children. One of the things you are teaching such children is that partners are dispensable, that they don’t need to be permanent, and you may be sure that your children will do it at a greater scale than yourself!
One of the costs of divorce then is the ability to raise your children in an environment that is congenial to their normal development.

ETERNITY ETERNITY IN HEAVEN.
Keeping a home requires you to demonstrate a lot of godly virtues which should be found in heaven bound individuals. You are very likely to need every item in the list of the fruit of the spirit listed in Galatians 5:22&23. On the other hand, a situation of divorce is likely going to make you to do something that is against the will of God; unforgiving inability to forgive, violence, inability to tolerate one another, inability to love after offenses, inability to submit to one another, retaliation, etc.
Also, it is inherent in many scriptures that when you are not living together in unity, it affects the answer to your prayers (1 Pet.3:7, Mal.2:13&14) There is the need for you to know therefore that anything that may prevent your prayers from being answered may actually prevent you from making heaven.
Divorce therefore has the potential of costing you your eternity in heaven.

CONCLUSION.
Having mentioned some of the reasons why divorce is an expensive venture, we counsel you to do all you can to keep your home and avoid experiencing the costs of divorce. This is undoubtedly challenging in many homes, but you may discover later that whatever you had to sacrifice to keep your home would most likely be mild when compared with what you stand to experience after divorce.